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Topic: dough tearing (Read 2808 times)

I have been making pizza for a long time but I cant stretch a dough by hand I have to roll it. This is causing me no end of frustration, if I do stretch by hand the pizza is either too small in diameter or it tears. I get a lot of compliments on my dough but I know it could be so much better. My dough is 100% flour, 62% water, 2.2% salt, 2% sugar and 1.4% IDY. I have tried numeroud techniques and watched loads of how to videos on you tube. Either it is something I have been born not to do or something is wrong with my dough. I have tried leaving it overnight in the fridge and also using it after one or two risings. Please offer any advice or a link to somewhere that may be of assistance.

Usually I bulkl ferment overnight then ballm the dough and use about 2 hours later, I don't usually reball the dough, Should I? (that is my procedure when catering a function) Often at home I go straight from the bulk ferment into shaping without giving the dough balls a lot of time.

Usually I bulkl ferment overnight then ballm the dough and use about 2 hours later, I don't usually reball the dough, Should I? (that is my procedure when catering a function) Often at home I go straight from the bulk ferment into shaping without giving the dough balls a lot of time.

Balling the dough strengthens the gluten making it difficult to stretch. Re-balling is usually a bad idea. Try giving the dough balls more time to rest and see if that helps your problem.

I have tried numerous techniques and watched loads of how to videos on you tube. Either it is something I have been born not to do or something is wrong with my dough. I have tried leaving it overnight in the fridge and also using it after one or two risings.

rumper,

From your brief description, it sounds like you are using your dough in two ways. Specifically, it sounds like you sometimes cold ferment the dough in bulk and divide it into individual pieces later, and that you sometimes ferment the dough at room temperature and use it that day, after one or two risings. Is that correct and, if so, why are you using two methods instead of one? Is it because of unique aspects of your mobile pizza business? Also, if you are cold fermenting the dough in bulk, is that because of insufficient cooler storage capacity to hold large numbers of dough balls?

I am using dough in two ways, room temp when cooking Friday night pizzas for the family and the cold ferment exactly as you said for the mobile pizza business. I could possibly create enough fridge space to store some dough balls, would this be better than a bulk ferment? I am in Australia (Broome WA) so the flour I use is Laucke Wallaby brand which may be unfamiliar to you guys. Broome is a small country town so we aren't really spoilt for choice.Thanks again for your feedback.

Thanks Peter I really appreciate all of your advice, it is very difficult with the time difference to be online at the same time. I am catering for 110 at a birthday party this weekend so I will be taking all of your tips on board and put them into practice. I probably should of mentioned that my dough balls are 220-225g and I am trying to stretch them to about 12inches.

I am not sure how much of what I have to say will help you, but I will give you what I have learned from my reading about cold fermenting dough in bulk and then cutting and forming into individual dough balls.

I will start off by saying that there are a few members on the forum who cold ferment dough in bulk and then do the division later. That might work reasonably well in a home setting with a few dough balls, but even then one has to be very careful in forming the dough balls and they have to be handled gently. Remember also that the dough is likely to be on the cold or cool side since it spent most of its life in the cooler. That alone makes it difficult to form the individual dough balls, and it is more time consuming than working with a batch of dough at around 80-85 degrees F, so you can imagine how long it would take you to form say, a hundred dough balls or more at one sitting. Moreover, if the dough balls formed from the bulk dough are manhandled or treated roughly, the dough balls can become overly elastic and hard to open up without the skins springing back. As a result, rips or tears can easily form in the skins. In cases like this, to be able to use the dough balls, it may become necessary to let the dough balls warm up at room temperature for several hours so that the gluten relaxes again. But, even then, you might experience less than optimum results.

One of the few times that I have read about a pizza operator using the above methods is, interestingly, an Australian pizza operator who posts at the PMQ Think Tank under the name wa dave. In his case, he intentionally colds ferment the dough in bulk because he has limited cooler capacity and cannot store large numbers of dough balls. However, in his case, when he forms the dough balls, they are run through a sheeter or roller and then placed on screens (I believe that he may have switched to disks) and racked at room temperature. Even with a sheeter, it can take wa dave 20-60 minutes to form the dough balls from a 25kg batch. You might find it useful to read all about this at the PMQTT at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=57491#p57491. I later read that, even with wa dave's dough making and management protocol, he was still having some problems with his dough, as he so noted at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=73312#p73312, but where he apparently found a way to store dough balls overnight.

A protocol that is often used for the preparation and management of dough balls that are to be cold fermented is one that Tom Lehmann of the American Institute of Baking once gave me. You can read about it at Reply 18 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7499.msg64554/topicseen.html#msg64554. As you can see by the short cut and dough balling time (20 minutes), it is far easier to do the cutting and balling when the dough is warm. Moreover, dough balls prepared using the steps outlined in Reply 18 can be formed into skins by hand. You don't need a sheeter or roller, although one can certainly be used if available. In fact, Tom Lehmann once described how to open up dough balls using a combination of a sheeter and hand stretching at a PMQTT post at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=40908#p40908. Based on the dough ball weight (225 grams) that you mentioned for making a 12" pizza, I calculate a thickness factor of (225/28.35)/(3.14159 x 6 x 6) = 0.0702. That represents a fairly thin dough skin that might require a fair amount of practice to get to the point where rips and tears do not form in the skin during stretching and any related tossing. Sometimes, pizza operators start with more dough and gradually reduce the amount of dough as more practice and experience is gained.

For additional dough preparation, forming and shaping help, you might want to take a look at the Lehmann/Zeak and Tony Gemignani videos at , , and .

In your case, if you decide to use the methods recommended by Tom Lehmann you may want or need to reduce the amount of yeast because 1.4% IDY is multiples of what one would normally use for a one-to-three day cold ferment. For example, if you were making a NY style dough, you might use the amounts of yeast specified in the dough formulation that Tom came up with at the PMQ Recipe Bank at http://www.pmq.com/Recipe-Bank/index.php/name/New-York-Style-Pizza/record/57724/.

Wow Peter thankyou for such a detailed reply. i have taken on board what you have said and what I have read and watched from your links. I have enough room to be able to ball some dough ( not all ) and to bulk ferment the rest, however I think I will be able to do this in 1.5kg lots which may be better than one big bulk. Thanks again for your advice I will try as much as I can and when I have a smaller function I should be able to ball all of the dough then refigerate. I will let you know how it goes.